Negative effects of military base operations on neighboring residents and veterans are wide ranging and sometimes deadly. Military base neighbors suffer increased cancer risks from air toxics, pollution of drinking water basins, high body burdens of radioactive and toxic constituents, exposure to chemical weapons releases, threats from unexploded ordnance and safety threats from incinerators and nuclear reactors close to heavily populated areas.

Many people no longer are willing to pay the high cost of living next to military operations. They are organizing and fighting back.

In 1990, Environmental Health Coalition became a founding member of the Military Toxics Project, joining with other grassroots organizations to reduce the impacts of military operations and pollution on neighboring residents. The project now represents 400 community organizations, Native American tribes, veterans groups and individuals with the common purpose to promote cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention by U.S. military bases and contractor facilities.

"The military is like no other polluter," said Laura Hunter, Director of EHC’s Clean Bay Campaign. "It operates outside of democracy, it operates in secret, and it is immune from many environmental laws,"

In November, EHC hosted a conference of the MTP Base Contamination Network. At a People’s Congressional Hearing on Nov. 11, local elected and appointed officials heard public comment on the Military Environmental Responsibility Act (MERA), proposed federal legislation that would require military compliance with the same environmental and safety laws as other entities. Project members in attendance shared stories of the effects of nearby military operations on their communities.

As reported in the last issue of the Toxinformer, a poll conducted for EHC by the San Diego State University Social Science Research Laboratory showed 66 percent of San Diegans favor holding the Navy to the same environmental protection laws and guidelines required of other industries. Pursuant to this goal, EHC has worked with U.S. Congressman Bob Filner to draft MERA. If approved, the legislation would remove military immunity and exemptions from federal and state environmental and safety laws.

"We have had great success in this nation in the 1970s and 80s enacting environmental laws," Filner said. "And yet it turns out the military, one of the biggest, most economically powerful and most capable organizations of doing damage to the environment, is not subject to these laws.’

Pedro Nava of the California Coastal Commission and Imperial Beach Councilmember Patricia McCoy joined Filner for the November hearing. Nava learned about the impacts of nuclear aircraft carriers and the commission’s inability to regulate the military at a series of public hearings held earlier this year. He was impressed by the deep commitment and thorough research of the many community members who testified concerning the need for increased protection.

"I’m concerned about the risks we impose on working-class people in the name of military preparedness," Nava said. "I’m concerned that we don’t require of the military the same care that we demand of businesses."

McCoy knows only too well the arrogance of the Navy when it comes to dealing with local communities. In 1999, the first of hundreds of planned truckloads of contaminated bay sediments dredged to allow nuclear aircraft carriers into San Diego Bay already had arrived in Imperial Beach for disposal before any local authority was notified. Fast action on the part of the City Council exposed this travesty to the media and the Navy, facing a public relations nightmare, reversed its decision.

"I think the thing that gives me most pause for concern is this growing disrespect and disconnect for the land that nurtures all of us. I don’t care where you are, in corporate America or in the struggles of poverty, we’re all in this place together and we have an obligation to the land and all other living creatures to restore what we have done," McCoy said. "We don’t want the military to poison the very people they are supposed to be protecting."

For many decades, the U.S. Navy has occupied most of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, using it for live bombing practice and other activities. But Vieques is not an abandoned island; it is home to 9,000 of Puerto Rico’s poorest residents. Years of military exercises, including the recently discovered use of depleted uranium ordnance, have caused serious negative effects on the health and quality of life of the people of Vieques.

After the killing of a civilian worker by a Navy bomb last year, the movement to end the U.S. military presence on the island intensified. Robert Rabin, keynote speaker for the November conference, coordinated the Peace and Justice Camp that occupied the Naval bombing range and led to a temporary suspension of military exercises. Officials arrested 216 demonstrators on the bombing range in May. Protesters have re-entered the bombing range numerous times since then, resulting in about 1,000 more arrests.

"The committee for the rescue and development of Vieques strongly supports the Military Environmental Responsibility Act as a mechanism to end military irresponsibility in relation to the environment and the health of people close to their facilities," Rabin said. "In Vieques, we struggle for demilitarization, decontamination, return of the land and a future, sustainable, community-controlled economic development. The healthy use of Vieques land to be taken back by our community depends on the level of environmental cleanup the Navy is forced to carry out before leaving."

When Doris Bradshaw’s grandmother died of a unique form of cancer, Doris wondered why. Increasing numbers of women in her neighborhood were suffering miscarriages and kidney diseases. Babies were being born with birth defects and girls as young as 15 were being diagnosed with cancer. Something was wrong.

Bradshaw, now board chair of the MTP, investigated what was so "unique" about her neighborhood environment. What she found was shocking. The Department of Defense had operated a secret chemical warfare weapons depot in the heart of this black residential community. The local high school stands directly adjacent to a ditch that drained contaminants from the depot.

"The Defense Department in Memphis does not address health issues. And they’ve told us that we cannot be moved away from the site," Bradshaw said.

These exposure were not all from past military operations. Recently, the military released a toxic chemical weapons gas into the community. Neighbors were not notified of the release for almost 10 days. Residents said the failure to report the release to the general public is just the latest example of environmental racism.

"There are people who live 15 feet from were they’re removing mustard gas bombs without an emergency escape plan," Bradshaw said. "This is criminal."

Annie Alowa died last year, the fourteenth person in her village to succumb to cancer. A photo of this Native American health worker standing amidst thousands of barrels abandoned by the U.S. Military in the Aleutian Islands told a story of contamination and abandonment. Alowa, a Yu’pik elder in the community of Savoonga, served as a health aide in her village for 25 years. She campaigned for the military to clean up the area it extensively contaminated at Northeast Cape along the coast of the Bering Sea on Saint Lawrence Island.

The contamination of this area from military operations is wide-spread. Savoonga village elders say the stream near the community, once one of the richest fish streams on Saint Lawrence Island, has been barren in the 30 years since the military began poisoning it.

"Alaska is perceived as remote," said Janet Daniels, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Community Action on Toxics. "The small populations of isolated communities lack the political clout to resist the intrusion or to force proper cleanup.

Before the military occupied Northeast Cape, people maintained fishing and hunting camps or lived there year round. Within a nine square-mile radius, Army Corps of Engineers contractors have identified at least 23 contaminated sites that require environmental investigation and cleanup. Identified contamination includes fuel spills totaling more than 220,000 gallons, solvents, heavy metals, asbestos and PCBs. A military contractor estimated that one of the barrel dumps contained more than 29,500 buried drums. The military left several other large barrel dumps, landfills and a building complex with extensive fuel and chemical contamination.

"The very same people who spent so much time, energy and money to prepare to defend the citizens are the very same people whose lack of foresight has caused contamination of food and water sources for many native communities, causing long-term adverse health effects and terminal illnesses," Daniels said. "The Department of Defense must be held accountable for their actions."

When Community Health Team members surveyed homes in North Kelly Gardens, a largely Latino community in San Antonio, Texas, the results were staggering. Ninety-one percent of adults and 79 percent of children surveyed were suffering multiple illnesses. Residents suffered high incidences of neurological disorders, respiratory problems and elevated blood lead levels.

Many pointed to nearby Kelly Air Force Base as a potential cause. A plume of toxic contamination extends more than four miles beyond the base and underlies 20,000 homes in North Kelly Gardens and nearby neighborhoods. Other toxic sites include unlined disposal pits for chromium plating sludge wastes and low level radioactive waste sites. Kelly AFB also is a major source of air pollution in San Antonio due to the large number of military-industrial facilities operating on the base, which emit more than one million pounds of air pollutants each year.

The SW Public Worker’s Union filed a Title VI complaint, alleging that pollution of Latino neighborhoods near Kelly AFB violated residents’ civil rights. The union has instituted a training program for young organizers and completed their own health surveys of the community to raise awareness of the health impacts on residents from Kelly AFB contamination.

Marilyn Field had no idea of the true nature of her "neighbors" when she retired to Coronado in 1995. What she has learned since has her fighting for her health and safety every day.

San Diego is home to the largest military complex in the world, which is getting bigger and more dangerous. The Naval presence occupies 181,000 acres of San Diego County and includes eight bases, 120 commands and more than one-third of the Pacific Fleet. Past Naval activity in the region has been responsible for bombs on local beaches and 100 toxic waste sites. Now, six more nuclear reactors (two per Naval aircraft carrier) are coming into San Diego Bay, adding the emission of hundreds of tons of air pollution and creating new depository for radioactive waste.

Working with activists like Field, EHC is fighting for adequate protection in the event of an accident. There have been 14 documented accidental releases of radiation associated with Naval reactors. The Navy has released radioactive coolant water into San Diego Bay and in the past, researchers found levels of radioactive cesium-137 at almost ten times background near bases with ported nuclear vessels. Further, Naval reactor safety systems depend more on operator controlled systems than do commercial reactors, making them more susceptible to human error.